


Shifted Roses

by ZarcromHex



Category: RWBY
Genre: AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-04-29 05:38:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14466177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZarcromHex/pseuds/ZarcromHex
Summary: Ruby Rose is accepted into beacon academy under... interesting circumstances.Who are the cloaked figures?What is the underlying secret?RWBY AUfirst time writing a fanfic hopefully it turns out alright.





	1. Enter: Ruby

**Author's Note:**

> After a run in with torchwick Rose joins beacon.

A red cloak wearing girl around the age of 15 stood looking through magazines in the back of a dust shop while listening to her favorite song red like roses. While she was pouring over a copy of Dust to Guns a hand grabbed her shoulder and yanked her backwards. Pulling of her hood she looked behind her and saw a man holding a sword towards her. “Are you… robbing me?” the girl inquired with a glint in her silver eyes. The man responded “well duh.” “ohhhhh.”.

A man with a bowler hat and a cane stood at a desk looking at a cowering older man while two other men flanked him with swords drawn. “Take my money, I don’t want any trouble.” “of course you don’t” he said with a kind smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Than he glanced to the other two men as well as the two guarding the door and said without a smile. “Get the dust.”

As the men went to the dust dispensers they were interrupted by a flash of black and red and roses and the glass of the store broke outward. As they looked out they saw the the red cloaked girl standing over a knocked out goon with her scythe easily larger than herself resting on her shoulder. They all stared blankly at her until the bowler hat man broke the silence “well… get her.” 

Once the had surrounded her they charged, when they brought their swords to where she had been standing moments before they hit only open air and a couple roses by the time the man with the cane noticed her she was standing a couple feet in front of him to the left and when he was about to call to the idiots he was working with they all collapsed. Confused he lifted his cane and aimed it at the speedy red girl and a small scope popped up on the bottom of his cane revealing a barrel of a rifle. “Sorry red but this is where we part.” he shot and a red bullet lodged itself in the ground between the two of them and it burst spewing smoke everywhere.

By the time the girl stopped coughing and the smoke had mostly cleared the man was already at the top of a fire escape and she heard the engines of a ship at the top. Before she went after the bowler man she went to check on the shop owner. Upon finding him unharmed she proceeded to dash to the fire escape after the man.

Once she reached the top she saw a ship taking off with the man cackling down at her as it went, before she could dash forward to try and intercept the take of a women with her face obscured and glowing red arms shot fire at the scythe wielder. Noticing it was too late to avert her course she prepared to be burned only to be stopped by an invisible force. As the ship escaped out of range a women in a tight fitting blouse and skirt walked towards the red girl. “What do you think your doing child.”

A little while later......

“If it were up to me I would commend you for saving the shop and assuring the shopkeepers safety, than I would slap your wrists for willingly running towards a known criminal such as Roman Torchwick, as well as-” she was interrupted as a man in a green vest wearing a suit and a green tie with white hair walked into the open carrying a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Once he had sat down and placed the cookies in front of her. After she had amazingly finished the plate in a rather short amount of time he began. “Do you know who I am?” “you’re professor ozpin, headmaster at beacon academy.” she responded. “Yes, now what would a small girl such as yourself be doing wielding such a dangerous weapon as a scythe? And fighting dangerous criminals no less?” he questioned. “WellI’vealwayswantedtobeahuntressandIwastaughthowtouseascythbymyuncleand-” “calm down your not in trouble. How would you like to join my school.” she smiled rather widely “I would love too.”

Once the girl had went on her merry way the taller woman stared down at the professor. “Why did you invite her to beacon?” “whatever do you mean?” he said coldly. “Those men with roman, one is barely recovering, three of them are in a coma and one is dead from blunt force trauma.” “you know how difficult it is to wield a scythe I would say this is a rather favorable outcome, it could have been much worse had she not been there, dust could be in rather unsavory hands and an innocent could have been hurt, she clearly has semblance control well beyond that of many of beacons own freshman, she is wasted spending two more years at signal.” the woman sighed “of course very well then.”

A group of people wearing dark robes standing in a dimly lit room with their faces covered sat at a round table talking. “Did everything go as planned?” a women with familiar tattoos inquired to the rest. “Somewhat the women almost got in the way but it worked out in the end.” a man with a cane resting to the side of his chair stated. The shortest one of them just laughed “eh, coulda been worse.” the tattoo girl chuckled “very well the plan proceeds then, now we can act even sooner than anticipated. Just keep them away from the old city yes?” she addressed to the shortest one. The short one mused “I’ll do my best, no promises.” she stated gleefully. “Very well”

Days later…

“Ruuuubbbbyyyyyy.” a comet of yellow shot across the airship slamming into the small red hair girl. “Ouch, hi yang what was that for.” the girl known as yang shot up and squeezed the smaller girl. “What do you mean of course I’m gonna be excited that my baby sister is gonna be with me at beacon, one I haven’t spent a lot of time with since she started training with a scythe.” “yah yah ok but could you loosen up your choking me.” Yang released her but not after giving her another excited squeeze causing Ruby to squeak. 

As they left the airship they were so distracted by the huge school around them they didn’t notice as they almost walked into a cart full of boxes that said S.D.C. on them but before they had a chance to run into them a blacked haired girl with golden eyes and a black bow on top of her head stopped them. “WATCH WHERE YOU ARE GOING YOU DOLTS.” a white haired girl in a white dress with pale skin exclaimed at them. “We didn’t hit you, you don’t have to yell.” “hmph, you’re lucky someone was paying attention before you idiots blew us all up. Do you know what’s in these boxes?” she glared accusingly. Before either Ruby or Yang could respond the black haired girl started “don’t get me wrong I wasn’t doing it for you schnee I just didn’t want these two to get involved with the shady dealings of the Schnee Dust Company on their first day here.” the white haired girl stared in disbelief before stomping angrily off with her servants pushing the cart along after her “thanks.” the two girls started turning toward the black haired girl only to find her walking away without another word. “Well, that was… interesting?” Yang said looking confused. “Yah, hopefully not everyone is that weird.”


	2. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby is not as she seems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***rubys thoughts***
> 
> **_flashbacks_ **

Initiation Day…..

All the new students were lined up on different silver platforms at the top of a cliff listening to Professor Ozpin’s description of the initiation. “You will be launched separately into the forest below and employ your own landing strategy. There the first person you make eye contact with is the person who will be your partner for the four years you are here. Then you must make it to the end of the forest get the relics at a temple there and make your way back. Do not hesitate to kill everything in your way. Or you will die.” Ruby prepared herself to be launched. she was wearing her normal red and black combat skirt and corset, and red cloak. she heard another classmate inquiring as to what a landing strategy meant but she wasn’t paying attention to him. She was trying to figure out which of here classmates she would seek out once the test was started. She saw the invincible girl Pyrrha Nikos, but her uptight super goody-twoshoes persona wasn’t all that appealing to ruby. Next she checked the bratty Schnee from the first day and instantly skipped over her, the boy who was asking about the landing strategy was clearly inexperienced definitely no, the super hyper-active girl who she thinks is named Nora seemed to be completely infatuated by the green robed calm boy who’s name is Ren, that’s a no go for those two, she thought that the most likely options are Yang or the dark haired girl who saved them earlier, but the black haired girl looked suspicious of everything and ruby coulda sworn she saw her bow twitch, no she didn’t wanna be involved with an overly suspicious person for her own reasons, Yang it was then.

After being launched into the forest Ruby dashed off in the direction she saw Yang go. “Gotta find yang, gotta find yang, gotta find yang.” she said aloud as the ran through the forest almost running directly into a white haired girl. ***Shit*.** as soon as they made eye contact the white haired girl set off dragging Ruby by the hood of here cloak. “By no means does this make us friends.” she said angrily as she dragged her away. “Yay….” Ruby said sarcastically.

As they made there way deeper into the forest it became increasingly more obvious that the Schnee- she now knew was named Weiss -had no idea where she was going but refused to admit it. “It’s this way.” ***Nope.*** “ummm, maybe this way.” ***Not that way either.*** “Weiss just admit it you’re lost.” “I don’t see you finding the way.” she replied in a huff. “Yah but at least I’m not pretending like I know everything.” *Which I do.* before the haughty girl could respond they heard a screech and a shadow fell over them, barely managing to avoid the barrage of sharp feathers that came down where they had just been standing. ***Nevermore.*** “nevermore!” Ruby rolled her eyes, than grinned in a not so nice way. “I have an idea.” Ruby jumped back grabbed Weiss and launched herself using her scythe and boosting using her high impact sniper kickback to shoot herself and Weiss higher until she grabbed onto the nevermores claws. “ARE YOU CRAZY!” Weiss who had been screaming the whole way up yelled from the other claw at her partner. ***Mayyybee.*** she just laughed in response.

Later at a temple…..

Yang and Blake had just made it to the temple and had taken a relic when they heard a scream from the forest. When they turned towards the forest they saw Pyrrha running out of the forest with a deathstalker behind her, while Jaune held onto the stalkers tail for dear life. Across from them an ursa stalked out of the trees and collapsed dropping an excited Nora and an exhausted Ren. Ren was in the process of berating Nora for riding an ursa when Ruby came falling from the sky lading next to Yang. “Rubes!!” “Yannggg!!!” Ruby and Yang Hugged and Weiss came flying after her landing near Ruby. “WHY DID YOU THINK RIDING A NEVERMORE WAS A GOOD IDEA!?” she screamed at Ruby. Ruby just shrugged and was about to respond when Jaune came flying into a pillar of the nearby temple. Ruby grabbed a relic and yelled to everyone. “Lets get outa here!” 

As they made a mad dash towards the cliff they ran through another section of the abandoned temple with the deathstalker on their tale and a nevermore flying over them and circling back towards them. As they were crossing a bridge the nevermore shot another volley of feathers shattering the bridge and separating them, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang on one side, with Ren, Nora, Pyrrha, and Jaune on the other. As Jaune started directing his team to chop off the tail of the stalker and eventually kill it, Ruby could not help but think. *maybe he could be useful in a fight after all* but she had other things to worry about. As the rest of her group were putting a beating on the nevermore she thought up a plan. “Yang Knock that pidgeon into the cliff face, Weiss freeze it there then prepare to launch something with you’re glyphs, Blake use your ribbon and prepare a slingshot!” as they got set up and the nevermore was stuck to the cliff face she jumped onto the middle of the slingshot with her scythe underneath her. “Weiss, think you can make the shot?” Ruby shot a mocking glance at Weiss. “Humph.” “you can’t?” “of course I can you dolt.” she shot ruby at the nevermore and ruby placed the sharp end of her scythe to its neck. Weiss placed speed Glyphs vertically up the cliff as ruby used her semblance combined with the kickback of her rifle to speed up to the top dragging the nevermore with her. Once at the top she stopped.

Ren, Nora, Pyrrha, and Jaune had just finished of the deathstalker and were looking up toward the nevermore which was writhing and screeching under the scythe-wielders blade for a full minute before ruby shot another bullet and removed it head from its body. Then she caught the head and watched as it disappeared. No one saw her from where she was but she was grinning very, very widely.

That night after the teams had been named, with Jaune the leader of team JNPR, Comprised of himself, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren. And Ruby as the leader of team RWBY, comprised of herself, Weiss, Blake, and Yang. Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch stood talking in his office. “But why make her the leader of a team, not only is she two years younger than the rest of her team, that itself would cause problems, but not only that today when they went up agaisnt that nevermore, she seemed to enjoy torturing it before she killed it.” Ozpin frowned at her. “While yes it was weird you were there when she said her blade got stuck and it wouldn’t finish the job without a shot, but I understand your concerns, we will keep an eye on her, as for her leadership role, I think it obvious by her quick thinking in the field that she should be the leader, is that all?” “yes yes.”

Flashback….

_7-year old Yang Xiao-long was dragging 5-Year old Ruby Rose into the forest with a wagon. This was a year after the death of Summer Rose Rubys mom and Ruby had spoken only whe necessary since her untimely demise. As they went deeper in they had been surrounded by beowulfs and Yang had been knocked against a tree and rendered unconscious, as ruby watched a grim stand over her about to dig its fangs into her throat ruby yelled and squeezed her eyes shut. Seconds went by and ruby opened her eyes, it seemed as though time had stopped, the snow that had been falling had frozen in the middle of its decent, the grim stood still poised to kill the unknowing Yang. “w-what h-happend?” Ruby stuttered confused at the spectacle before her. “You happend silly girl.” a mysterious voice of a women shook the little girls mind as it spoke. “Wh-ho are you?” “just a friend my little flower, now you don’t want another loved one dying on you, do you.” Ruby frantically shook her head. “C-course not.” “Then do you want me to give you power- or really -show you power you already have to save your loved ones?” the voice sounded sinister but calming at the same time and ruby simply nodded. “Very well little flower, dont tell other of me or you won't be able to protect them.” “ok.”_

_When time had resumed ruby had appeared in front of the grimm in between it and yang with her had embedded into its throat when she pulled it out the grimm gurgled and its red eyes eyes went dark, as it dissipated into smoke the black tar like blood that ruby had been staring at on her hands disappeared as well. When the other beowulfs stalked forward she looked up at them with inhuman glowing silver eyes, they stopped and began to back away. Then a flash of grey and red and they start to disappear like the one before. Standing in their midst was a grey haired man who began to rush over to Ruby and Yang as Ruby started to collapse. “U-uncle Qrow?” Ruby Stammered as she blacked out._

_Neither Qrow nor Yang really knew what happened that day, Ruby merely said that qrow had got there in time, Yang believed her but Qrow remained suspicious but didn’t press any further._

_8 years passed and Ruby did not hear from the women again until that fateful day where she was walking through a bigger city in vale with her Uncle and Sister when she heard it. “My little flower, watch that man two paces in front of you he wants to hurt you and your family.” “WHAT!?” she said out loud. “What's wrong Rubes?” Yang and Qrow looked at her worriedly, “nothing, sorry it’s fine. I need to go to the bookstore real quick i'll meet you at the restaurant.” she dashed off following the man the voice had been talking about before they could question her further._

_Once she had followed him for a couple blocks he ducked into an alley. “Kill him while he’s distracted” Ruby almost choked on herself. “Kill him? Why?” “do you want your loved ones to die?” Ruby shook her head. “Then trust me and do it.” once sh found the man she snuck up behind him and grabbed him by the neck and threw him against the wall, as he slid down she sat on top of him and strangled him with both arms, when she looked into his eyes and saw fear she loosened her grasp. “What are you doing kill him.” the voice growled in her head. “But he-” before she could continue he grabbed a bottle and smashed it over her head causing blood to dribble over her eye blinding her. He threw her off and started to run. “See he wants to hurt you quickly before he escapes.” Ruby picked up one of the bigger shards of glass and ran after him, before he had cleared the alley she used her semblance leapt onto his back and slashed his throat with the makeshift knife, blood spurted onto the ground and wall of the alley. Huffing and and trying to catch her breath, 13-year old Ruby leaned against the wall and closed her eyes when she opened them she looked at herself in the metal pieces that littered the ground and put her hand to her mouth. She was smiling, a wide excited smile… why was she doing that? “Well done my little flower, though you still have much to learn. Go wash up somewhere so you don’t get unwanted attention. And considering your success, I think a little pet name is out of place don’t you? How about…. My little reaper.” Ruby only responded with a bigger smile. Why, why did she do that, there was blood everywhere horrible, gross smelling, nasty, amazingly beautiful, blood._

_Once she had washed up she headed into the restaurant and walked straight up to Qrow. “teach me how to use a scythe.”_


	3. Bloody Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby is on a mission

A figure stood in the bay of a bullhead gliding above the clouds and the city, clad in white dress pants with a white button down shirt with a black bullet sash, on top of everything a white tailcoat lay across her back to her ankles, everything was covered in randomly placed red splotches of varying sizes and shades, from a distance it looked to be normal design, on closer inspection it is obvious that the splotches are indeed, blood stains. Obscuring the figures face was a full head alpha beowulf grimm mask with the eye holes covered in dark mesh making the eyes not visible from the outside.

Next to the bloody white figure sat a familiar man with a bowler hat and cane. “Nervous red?”

“Hah, as if, just excited. Been awhile since I was on a mission.” She responded while spinning one of two kurenai like blades made out of tempered glass. The man known as Roman Torchwick just shrugged. 

“I don’t know maybe you’re out of practice. Sure you don’t want to borrow any of my boys?” 

“nah, I’ll be fine, being in a huntsman school doesn’t exactly make it easy to be ‘out of practice’. Why you worried about me to~rchy?” 

“yah right, if I let you get hurt when I could prevent it the queen would kill me, and probably not quickly.” he responded with a chuckle and a shake of his head. 

“Just make sure you get in get out.” 

“alrighty torchy, so what is the name of this place anyway.” the grimm masked girl leaned out trying to see her target.

“It’s a small store called Dust to Dust.” The girl frowned at that. “What, why am I doing grunt work?” 

“oi I’m not a grunt.” The girl merely laughed him off. 

“Anyway, ever since our little er…. Altercation, the cops have been closely guarding the rest of the dust shops in the town.” 

“oh I got you now.”

“s~ooo red, why don’t you get the blood off your clothes?” 

“Because, I like the color and the, smell, and the amazing memories behind each stain.” she excitedly pointed to a stain near her shoulder.

“Like this one, I got this one when I slit the throat of a Schnee advisor. Almost didn’t make it out of that one.” she chuckled while reminiscing of the past hit.

Than her smile grew as she remembered something. “Hey torchy guess who’s on my team at beacon.”

Torchwick just frowned. “How would I know red.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Bleh, you’re no fun. Its Weiss Schnee.” 

Torchwick almost spat out his cigar in surprise. “WHAT, the heiress is on your team.”

“Hahaha, knew that’d get you, yeah she’s on my team, not only that but she’s my partner. Aint fate funny like that.”

Roman groaned. He did not say anything but he was thinking about all the things that could go wrong in this situation. “Don’t worry about it torchy they don’t suspect a thing. But that’s not all, my half sister, as well as the person I think adam is looking for, are also on my team.”

This time he just sighed. “Looks like you’re in for an interesting school year red.” then he looked down and shrugged. “It seems we’re here red, have some fun, just not to much, we don’t want you found out.”

“I know, I’m not gaunty like you torchy, in and out like a flash.” before he could protest she jumped out of the already lowering bullhead and landed on the roof of a dust shop. After steadying herself she crept up to the ledge and looked down onto the street below where 2 cops were standing guard looking thoroughly bored. **I’ll just have to change that now won’t I.**

Then she leapt down into the alleyway next to the store and kicked a glass bottle into a wall shattering it, and she hid herself as the cops charged into the alley with their guns readied. **amateurs.** she thought huskily as they walked side by side right past her without leaving one to watch the others back. A mistake she was surely going to make use of. She slinked up behind them and wrapped her arms around them with her twin glass knives held to their throats. They both took a gasp of air.

“Hiya boys.” she said with a gleeful smile. Oh how shes missed this. Before either could bring their weapons to bear she had already slit the one on the lefts throat and using the handle of her right handed knife she crushed the rights windpipe. Snickering as he collapsed holding his his hands to his bruised throat croaking as he tried to scream, and failed. She threw the dead one to the side and looked sadly at his body. **too bad I couldn’t have more fun with that one I guess one will do.**

As she stalked toward the live one as he writhed under her happy little smile, he couldn’t believe someone so cute and childlike could cause him so much fear.

Ruby was getting more excited at the prospect of playing with her new toy when an arrow flew through the air and embedded itself in the terrified man’s chest he looked down in disbelief and pain as he slid down the wall leaving a trail of blood behind him, he collapsed as the arrow that had stuck in him vanished into ash.

The grimm masked girl was furious at the death of her new plaything and spun around to look at the shooter. A woman with black hair, fiery eyes, and a long dress infused with dust stood there, seemingly mocking the shorter girl before her.

“We have a mission to do, we don’t have time for you to play aro-” before she even finished her sentence she was shoved against the wall with two elbows digging into her shoulder and knives placed on her throat. Her mocking attitude changed to that of fear as she could have sworn she saw silver through those mesh covered eyes.

“It’s not your job to question what I do, Cii~ndy, just make sure you do what you need to do, and I’ll do what I need to do. Or if you wanna play rough I could just slip this knife into your pretty little throat.”

The woman gagged trying not to move much to avoid the knives blades as she spoke. “You can’t, you need me.”

Ruby just laughed. “Oh I’m sure the queen could find someone else.” “now now, my little reaper, while I could find someone else that would set the plan back for awhile, do you mind playing nice, at least for a bit longer.” a voice said inside her head.

The knife-wielder growled as she backed away, and the taller woman glared at her as she started to check for cuts on her neck. “Oh Saley, Cindy knows I’m just playin around. Aint that right cindy.” regaining her usually jovialness she slung an arm lazily around the woman known as cinders shoulder. The woman just grunted and shrugged off the smaller girls arm.

“Aw~w don’t be like that cindy, it was all in god fun.” “whatever can we just get this done.” the taller woman began to walk to the side entrance of the store and melted the lock away. “Fine fine, I swear all of you are so uptight.”

When the two woman walked into the store a group of people wearing simplistic half-face grimm masks came around the corner and followed after them into the store. “Gather it up.” The black haired woman stated to the men, as they started to gather up the dust the girl with the full-face mask walked over to a wall and put three scratch marks- a symbol of the white fang -into the wall. 

Once everything had been grabbed and they walked out and made their way to the roof again to be picked up by the bullhead that brought ruby there.

Roman leaned out and said. “Everything go well, wouldn’t want to tell the queen there was a complication on my watch. The girl in the full mask folded her arms across her chest and grunted. “No it didn’t go well, cindy spoiled my fun, it was totally boring.” 

Roman just shrugged. “Usually boring is good.” “not when you wanted to have fun, man what a wet blanket, all yall. Ruinin my fun.” she slouched into a seat as the bullhead took off and pouted under her mask. The black haired girl just frowned and ignored her as Roman laughed.

\-----------------------

“Where have _you_ been.” Weiss stated pointing at Ruby as she walked into the dorm room.

“Oh you know, training.” she replied with a smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the constant change in style, just trying to find what works for me. and how i work as a writer is pretty different from most people. i hate deciding what to write before i write it. so i dont, that probably lead to some contradiction in the future if it does and i dont realize it please let me know. 
> 
>  
> 
> also let me know what you think. as i said before im not the most confident writer and im beginning to lose motivation to continue, if you like it so far even a kudos could help. thanks and seeya in the next chapter.

**Author's Note:**

> this is just the first part of an idea i came up with on the spot and started writing. im not exactly confident in writing so if you would like me to continue please just let me know in the comments.  
> thank you for reading if you made it this far.


End file.
